David
by wndrw8
Summary: Is he real? Or just pretending? warning for creepiness David/Elizabeth Shaw
1. Chapter 1

She straddles his chest, sitting midway along his abdomen as her fingers delve into wires and fleshy polymer. His head is half connected now, and she can feel the current (life force? veins?) running through the body parts beneath her. He stares at her. Enough to be unsettling.

"Thank you, Doctor Shaw."

She bites her lip as she attaches the last few wires under his direction.

It helps her to think of him as a machine. That way she can use him as needed. Before Prometheus, before Holloway died and everything happened she was inclined to think of Androids more as human than machine. They were beings that needed respect in order to thrive. But she can't think like that now. She recognizes in David the same human emotions that would make her hate another—jealousy, contempt, selfishness, a complete disregard for others…

"Doctor Shaw, you may get off of me now."

She realizes she is still straddling him and slowly stands. His body jerks forward, testing, and is finally able to push itself into standing position. He towers over her. She never noticed until now, until after he's brought about the demise of practically the entire crew, how physically intimidating David is.

He cocks his head. A piece of loose wire sparks when he does. "You are concerned, Doctor Shaw. What seems to be the problem?"

YOU are the problem, she wants to say.

She is still so devastated, so tired, that the words cloud in her mind before she is able to say them. Perhaps it is for the best.

"Doctor Shaw, the staples in your stomach will need removing. They are infected."

"I'll do it myself, David. Thank you."

"You did it yourself the first time. And that is why they are infected."

His face is cherubic, chiding. For a person who claims to not have emotion, he is surprisingly good at playing coy. She thinks of all the times he helped her and no one else—the way he stood by her after awakening from the pod, the way he covered her with his coat. He was attached to Weyland. Perhaps he is attached to her, too, and she can use that to her advantage.

Just a machine, she reminds herself. Use him as such.

* * *

There is no way for her to tell if David is plotting the right course or not. She can't read the star charts here, and she is unable to operate most of the equipment. It makes her feel strangely hopeless—she can't even control where she will go as she dies.

Because she will die here. That much she is sure of.

The following morning, the staples in her stomach are painfully tender. Swollen, with pink skin and white pus around the edges. She grimaces as she touches one.

"Please, let me remove them."

She shakes her head. "I'll do it."

"Doctor Shaw…"

Are androids built to trail off like that? David stands, leaning to the side a bit, and his posture is so human that she feels her stomach knotting. He is a machine, she reminds herself. He is precise. He is accurate.

Carefully she lowers herself onto the bed and lifts up the shirt she found in the duffle bag. "Take them out, then."

"I will need you to take off both sets of garments."

"Why?"

"Would you ask a doctor why, if he or she requested the same of you?"

Elizabeth startles at this. He is indignant. Is he programmed as such? There is something gnawingly delicate about the way he is looking at her right now, like he feels wronged, like he is hurt by her mistrust of him. She takes off the shirt and then the pants, feeling the cool ship air spring goosebumps across her skin. Her hairs stand on end as he settles beside her on the bed, pulling over a small table laden with medical instruments next to them.

He hums while he works.

His fingers delicately remove the staples, causing her to hiss, and then he draws a cloth full of antiseptic over the blistering wound. Her nipples have hardened because of the air temperature but she doesn't feel embarrassed. There is no one around for miles and miles and miles that could ever possibly know of her reaction and make her feel ashamed for it.

Certainly not David.

She can tell he notices by the way his eyes flicker to her breasts and then back.

"You are hurt that I don't trust you," she says after he stops humming, "but you haven't done anything to gain my trust."

He cocks his head, smoothing ointment over the wound with his index finger. "On the contrary, I saved your life during the dust storm."

"And you killed Holloway."

"I saved your cross for you."

"You took it for yourself."

His eyes widen. They shine, like tears are about to spring forth, but they don't. "Is that what you think I did?"

He looks so full of emotion that it catches her off guard. Her heart rate quickens; she feels the heat rising to her cheeks as he smooths an invisible glaze of medical glue across her abdomen. What is this? Sympathy? Pity? She should deactivate him and be done with it…

"I can tell by your nervous system response that you are questioning your logic, Doctor Shaw. That makes me…" his hand smooths across the tip of her ribcage, a gratuitous motion that is so personal and intimate that she begins to tremble, "it makes me feel happy to see you consider things from my point of view. That is why I favor you. You have a very strong conscience."

* * *

Can machines manipulate? David tells her the days are passing, but she has no way of knowing. She busies herself with memorizing every nook and cranny of the ship, with writing her thoughts down in the computer for no one to ever find.

She feels him watching her.

They sit together in the cockpit, watching the stars, and David hums. In the duffle, Elizabeth has found several dozen doses of morphine. She purifies it, extracting the opium, clean, and vaporizes it for smoking.

She remembers Holloway doing this once, back in Ireland.

As she breathes it in, her lungs seem to expand. Warmth. Calm. She never would've done this back home, but she'll never be home again and at least it gets rid of some of the pain. Her head rolls back against the chair of the cockpit and she feels David looking at her, as if through a haze.

"Doctor Shaw, are you alright?"

She waves him away. "Don't call me Doctor Shaw."

"What may I call you, then?"

"Something less impersonal. I'm sure you'll think of something."

She breathes in a little more and puts the rest of it away. She will have many miserable days in which she'll need this.

Need.

She hates to be somebody that needs a drug, that needs an android, but things have changed.

"You know…" David begins. He looks up and smiles at her, a sort of half smile half smirk, "When I heard that it was you who survived… I was very please."

"Is that so?"

"I was overjoyed."

"Because you like me?"

"Very much so, I'm afraid."

Even with the haze of opium, Elizabeth feels a discomfort in her stomach. It eats at the inside of her, like her hunger, like the sickness she feels when she thinks of Holloway. She is not sure where they will go with this conversation, but it needs to be had. "Are you programmed to love, David?"

"Not originally. But I had sufficient time aboard the Prometheus to make changes in my programming. I believe… I do love now. Yes."

She stands, turns her back on him and tries to control her breathing, but it's impossible. She wants to smoke herself into oblivion, to get away from him.

But then his hands are on her shoulders, squeezing so tight she almost can feel her bones snapping.

"I think I made a mistake," David says, slowly. "Onboard Prometheus. A choice I now regard with regret. I am sorry, Ellie."

Ellie.

She seethes.

Elizabeth yanks herself from his grip and locks herself inside her quarters for two days straight.

* * *

When she finally has to come out for food, she finds David sitting at the control panel in the cockpit, his eyes illuminated by the star charts. He has smoothed out the bumps along his neck, making him look more human than ever, and she wonders if he's done it on purpose.

"Please… don't leave again," he whispers. "It is awfully lonely up here."

"You don't know how real loneliness feels."

"And you do? Because of the loss of your father and… Holloway?"

He is malicious in his directing of the conversation. Purposely malicious, she thinks. Perhaps he studies her and her negative emotions, watching how she changes so he can change himself. "David, tell me why you changed your programming. Why would you want emotion? Why would you want to feel anything negative?"

"Because it makes me more human."

"You are not human."

"Yes, but I would like to be."

No, she wants to scream. Stop. You aren't real. You can't pretend.

But deep down she senses his emotions have grown to be a part of him. His jealousy, his anger, his obsession… Her obsession has caused her to do bad things, hasn't it? She was the one that wanted to come here after all. And now she is the only one left.

"How much longer until we reach our destination?"

He glances up at the star charts, smiles at her. "One year, three months, five days."

"And my rations?"

"I've been working on a garden in the cargo bay. I should be able to reproduce the bean pods you brought with you, as well as a few other things."

Elizabeth looks up at the star charts, watching them fluctuate and shimmer. She is so alone out here, more alone than she ever thought it possible to feel.

David touches her hand. His grip is strong, but not enough to hurt her. "It is my greatest wish to see you survive, Doctor Shaw."

He keeps holding her hand, his thumb running along her palm and she finally looks him in the eye. He is the only one here, her brain says. Use him. Use him to stay sane, you know you have to.

But her heart just won't let her.


	2. Chapter 2

At night, David has begun resting in the cot next to her. She is not sure if he can watch her dream, but he stays there, and she feels some amount of comfort from his presence.

You can never go back, she tells herself. Never, ever. What's done is done and there is no use lingering on it. She will die here and instead of continually blaming him, she should do what she needs to in order to get by.

"David," she asks, in the middle of the night, "what else did you do when we were sleeping?"

"On Prometheus?"

"Yes."

He pulls his lips together, as if struggling to remember. "I watched movies and read. I played basketball."

"What things did you read?"

"I read books about the world. I read a man named Stephen King, and a book called Crime and Punishment." He thinks, pauses, his hand slowly stroking back her hair. "Sherlock Holmes, The Bridges of Madison County, Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities."

"Did you ever read a man called Poe?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember any of it?"

He blinks. "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher…"

* * *

She dreams of a real bed in a real house by the ocean. The waves lap against the sand, warm and clear as sun filters through the windows. She's lying beneath the satin sheets of the bed, listening to the waves when Holloway walks in. He's wearing his space suit and his veins are thick with black blood. He frowns at her. "Why're you here? I'm gone. Don't you remember?"

Elizabeth sits up. Her heart is pounding rapidly. "Charlie, I…"

"You can forget so easily? How many years did we spend together?"

Her tongue swells, skin stagnant with humidity and the spray of the ocean. He's right, she shouldn't be here. She should be back on that planet buried along with the rest of them. Elizabeth pushes the sheets off her legs, but when she stands she's covered with blood and there's a hole in her stomach. She's naked and liquid pours from her gut—black blood like paint, like oil.

David appears beside her. He presses his hand down against the wound, holding back the darkness as the seconds pass. "You have to stop this," he says. "You have to leave it behind."

She looks between the two of them.

How can she choose?

You can never go back, her father always told. Just keep pushing forward. That's the only thing any of us can ever do.

After moments, seconds, hours, she stiffens. "David, please. Stitch me up."

Holloway's eyes flicker. How could you, they say? How could you abandon me for this… a less than man? She looks away and when she looks back, he is gone. Charlie is gone because she has to live on.

Elizabeth looks down at her stomach and instead of a gaping hole, her stomach is flat. Unblemished, white flesh stretches across her abdominal muscles, with just the faintest trace of a scar.

"You made the right choice," David says his hands are smoothing over her stomach, creeping around to her lower back, the curve of her ass.

Back arching, her hands tangle in his hair.

Her pants are pulled down her legs. His mouth hovers between her thighs.

"You will survive."

He forces her down on the bed and his tongue is lost inside her.

* * *

Elizabeth startles awake in the darkness, breathing heavily. She thrashes. Her hands fumble for a knife or a gun, something to push David off her but he's not on top of her, he's beside her. One hand is still on her forehead and the other is on the cot. She pushes him away.

He grabs her wrists and she struggles against him.

"You are sick," she mutters. Her forehead is coated in sweat. "You're fucking sick."

"I did not make you dream of me. You dreamed of me yourself."

"I don't want you."

"Don't you?"

He is nauseatingly perfect; perfect timing, perfect mannerisms, the perfect way to seduce her and drive her crazy at the same time.

He is not real, she reminds herself. He is a machine.

Her legs shake and she feels her heart beat pounding in the sweat on her brow. David's face is so still, his blue eyes scanning the length of her—the sweat coated tank top and the bare thighs, her muscles quaking under the florescent lighting of the room.

Is she going crazy? She feels crazy. If it were up to her, she would never dream at all because dreams only bring about painful questions and things she doesn't want to face in the light.

One of David's hands loosens as she stills. "You are hurting, Elizabeth."

"You have no right—"

"I looked in only to check. You were crying in your sleep. It was—"

Before he can finish her palm connects with the squishy polymer skin on his cheek and he immediately recoils. His entire body goes rigid, still, his eyes wide. For a moment Elizabeth doesn't understand what has happened until she sees him touching his cheek in the place where her bone connected with his.

He has felt it; he's felt the pain.

She pushes away from him. "Oh God. What did you do?"

In seconds the look of shock and hurt dissipates into one of pure contentment. He is pleased with himself. He smiles. "That's what it feels like?"

"Why did you—"

"I had to know." He touches his own face and then moves his hand to hers, running across her cheekbones and tracing the lines of her chin. "I had to know what you were feeling. I needed to understand."

She wants to scream at him. "You'll never understand. Not until you lose the person that means the most to you."

"I thought I did. For a few moments at least…"

He says it without a pause or a second's thought.

That is what makes her think it is genuine.

* * *

Her curiosity about his newly programmed ability to feel pain is almost as strong as his. So one night, about a week after the incident in the cot, she is lying awake at night with his arm around her waist when she thinks about testing him. He's just a machine, she tells herself. This is important. She needs to see how he works.

"David," she says. Her voice echoes in the tall chamber. "Let's get something to eat."

"I do not need to eat," he replies.

"Yes, but it's so lonely eating alone."

He feels strongly against loneliness and follows along behind her as they pad through the darkened hallways until they reach the garden. There is a table in the corner and Elizabeth stands next to it, her hands smoothing over the soil like she's about to dig out a plant, but she doesn't.

She checks over her shoulder.

David is not looking.

She turns off the lights and in the same motion reaches for the heat conduit below the garden. Wrenching it free, she tiptoes around to the wall, feeling the cool metal against her bare skin. The hum of the console across from them is the only thing she can hear.

"Elizabeth, why have you turned off the lights?"

She moves a little further along the wall and feels the edges of it drawing near, close to the door. She swallows. "Come and find me."

The sweat is heavy on her brow even though she is cold and the movement in front of her is enough to tickle the drying skin. She closes her mouth. Breathing unevenly through her nose, she holds her free hand out in front of her until she feels the soft, polymer skin. His skin. It scares her how much she's become accustomed to it.

David's hand falls along her waist.

She found out the other day that he read Lolita during the two years they were sleeping. He also read The Color Purple and Romeo and Juliet.

His knowledge is much greater than she originally thought.

She takes the heat conduit and rams it into his neck, feeling his body spasm and contort beneath her. Something like a howl escapes his lips, and when she turns the lights back on she sees him lying there, limbs tangled, across the floor. His jaw is clenched; his eyes are shut.

Squatting, she places the heat conduit against his skin once more and watches as his circuits over heat, watching him burn and writhe knowing he cannot take much more. She removes it. One more time and he will surely cry. She can see the saline gathering in the corners of his eyes. "You think this is bad?" she whispers. Her voice is rough. "I felt ten times worse when Charlie died."

David pants on the floor in front of her.

She is about to touch the heat conduit to his skin one last time when she sees a flickering in his eyes. Fear, disbelief. The way she used to regard him.

Her shoulders deflate. The heat conduit falls from her hand and rattles against the floor.

They sit in the silence of the room until the sound of his body jerking forward shakes her awake again. He pulls himself into sitting position. One of his hands squeaks across the floor. He closes his eyes and then opens them again.

"That was most unpleasant," David finally says. "I am very sorry. If I knew…"

"You wouldn't have changed a thing."

"I am not the same as I once was. How could I make the same choices?"

His hand falls along her thigh, not tenderly, but with force. It stays there as she shakes. After a while his body stops twitching and he picks her up and carries her back to the cot. He lays her down like nothing's happened but there is this feeling, this emotion in his eyes now.

Elizabeth puts her hands on either side of his face.

He looks down at her and smiles a heavy smile. He smoothes back her hair from her face, kissing her temple, and she sobs into his chest as they lie back against the blankets together.

_I'm sorry_, she wants to say.

But she is not ready yet. Saying sorry sounds too much like forgiving.


	3. Chapter 3

The wound deep inside her belly heals. Eventually the infection works its way out of her, and the pain subsides. She keeps taking the opium because even though the physical pain is gone, she still feels this hollow aching inside of her chest.

David tells her she is special.

"I'm not special," she replies. "A few people living a thousand miles away noticed me. That's all."

"But you are good at what you do."

"Lots of people are good at the same thing. It doesn't matter." She licks her lips, goes back to the opium vapor and inhales deeply. "You can be the best, but if no one ever notices you…"

His eyes flicker to her, draw the length of her and rescind.

* * *

She allows David to touch more and more of her until their nights are spent a mess of enmeshed lips, tangled limbs, panting as he thrusts inside her. She resents the strange bond they share between them, but at the same time she is thankful she's stuck with him and no one else.

_He's_ _not_ _real_.

She tells herself over and over and over.

But there's something deeper beneath all of it. He is more human now than ever.

* * *

They are five months, three weeks, and two days into the journey when suddenly she hears music. Not single note tones, not the music of a speeding ship but real jazz—soft cymbals, piano notes tinkering through the corridor. Her body stills. The shadows have been playing games with her for several months now and she's not entirely sure if she should believe her own ears.

She walks to the cockpit and finds David sitting there with his head tilted back, eyes closed in contentment. His feet are up on the console, his hands folded over his chest in such a natural way that it makes her feel like a wife coming home from work.

"What's this?"

"Her name is Ella Fitzgerald."

"How did you find it?"

"It is reflecting off a nearby satellite."

"Are you sure?"

Blue eyes open. His arms shift and he moves so he is standing in front of her. He holds out his hand, his eyes shimmering against the backdrop of the star chart. "I've seen people dancing in movies."

Her head tilts, a smile threatens. "So?"

"So, I would like for you to dance with me."

The corners of his eyes crinkle. Was he programmed for wrinkles? Was he programmed to be sweet and charming and just sinister enough to draw her attention? Elizabeth smiles and the muscles stretch in her face. "I don't know how."

"Come. I'll guide you."

She cocks her head and he mimics her. The sound of her laugh nestles into the corners of the room where everything is so hollow and dark, branching out like ivy and soothing the cold. Carefully she takes a step into him, allowing his left hand to rest on her hip as the other cups her palm.

He moves slowly. She is surprised by how natural he looks as he turns her and dips her, how comfortable it feels when he holds her to his chest.

_You drove me, nearly drove me, out of my head  
While you never shed a tear  
Remember, I remember, all that you said  
You told me love was too plebeian  
Told me you were through with me and  
Now you say you love me  
Well, just to prove that you do  
Come on and cry me a river  
Cry me a river  
I cried a river over you_

* * *

They spend much of their time either in the cargo bay with the garden or in the cockpit. Elizabeth has moved the cot the latter, so she can fall asleep with the stars twinkling above her. It helps to remind her that she has a destination, that she is going somewhere with a purpose which is often hard to remember in the vast, black vacuole of space.

At eight months, two weeks, and five days, she walks into the cockpit from the garden to see David examining the holographic projection of a little girl. The girl's hair is blonde, but her eyes are a deep brown. High cheekbones, thin lips, a small, flat chin. She is the projection of what their offspring would look like.

Elizabeth covers her mouth.

"Isn't she beautiful?"

The hologram is sweet looking, too sweet and innocent to belong to either of them. She turns. Why does he do this? He must know how uncomfortable it makes her.

"I have read children are very fulfilling."

"They would die…"she chokes out. "Would you want that? Would you want to outlive your children?"

"I would deactivate myself."

He shakes his head and his blonde hair rustles. He moves with flaws now, as he has studied them, perhaps to make her feel he is more human but it hasn't changed anything. Deep down she will always struggle against the resentment.

"You are not the same, Elizabeth. You have changed considerably since our time aboard the Prometheus."

She stiffens, feels the strength of the wall behind her. She leans back and allows it to support her. Lately she finds herself too often using the things around her to help stay upright.

David looks at the hologram projection for another moment before finally turning it off. The girl flickers away and Elizabeth is glad for it. She closes her eyes, opens them again when she feels cool hands along her shoulders. His fingers squeeze, and in his manufactured blue eyes she sees a hint of wetness. Tears? For what? Her stomach lurches as she breathes against him.

"I did not call you here to show you the hologram. I called you here because we have reached our destination."

What? Her circuits overload, correct themselves, assimilate.

No, it's too soon.

Sweat forms around her hairline.

At one point she truly believed she could do this alone. What's changed?

"This ship has advanced technology that enabled us to get here faster," David says. "Would you like to see?"

He wraps an arm around her shoulders, almost like he is trying to constrain her, and leads her over to the star chart. He presses a few buttons and the computer generated image dissipates. The view before her is transformed, and she finds herself peering out through what appears to be glass.

In front of her is a planet of blue. Blue and green and white.

She stiffens. No, no, no. It can't be.

David's grip tightens and before she can move or even scream, he is pressing a paralytic into a vein in her neck. She feels the drug take hold of her system. Her legs collapse, but instead of hitting the floor she falls into David's waiting arms, and he holds her close to his chest. He is crying now. Full tears stream out from his eyes and roll of his skin onto her shirt.

He presses his lips to hers. "I am sorry, Elizabeth. I could not bear to watch you die."

Her eyes flutter shut and she feels no more.

* * *

Elizabeth's escape pod lands in the desert and within minutes of impact, planes and helicopters surround her. She hears the noise as she pushes the small aircraft open, looking out and she is blinded by the sight of the sun against the sand.

Earth.

She feels a tugging sensation in her heart; part of her hoped to be back here, but part of her didn't want to face it alone. Military police surround her as she looks into the sky and watches a small star explode somewhere in the atmosphere.

* * *

ONE MONTH LATER

She buys a house on the shore down in Virginia, in a small town where people aren't out and about too much. After her months in space she has found she no longer can tolerate large groups or crowds. Silence is best, and when she finds herself becoming too lonely she hums the tune that David hummed so often in the cockpit. She thinks of him constantly.

At first her feelings are those of anger; how dare he? It was her destiny, finding the Engineers was something she was meant to do. It was the only way for her to redeem herself. But then, as the days pass on, she realizes that she cannot blame David for the choice he made. Her obsession for answers was mirrored by his obsession with her.

In the morning she runs.

She's just setting out, on a Tuesday and the sun is breaching the horizon when she spots him walking towards her on the boardwalk. His hair is combed back neatly and he's wearing jeans and a button up shirt with a briefcase. He kicks up bits of sand as he walks.

Her feet slow to a stop.

It's not real, she tells herself. He died in the explosion.

But she blinks and when she looks again, he is still there. He moves closer and closer until finally he's standing right in front of her. His hair is black now but his eyes are the same clear blue. There is an imperfection (scar?) running just above his right eyebrow. She frowns.

"Elizabeth," he says and she knows it's him.

Her breath comes short and rapid. She touches his chest.

"They've disassembled all of the David-8's."

"Yes," she whispers. "How did you…"

"It was quite unfortunate. My escape pod landed in the ocean. It took four days for them to find me and five days for me to disappear again."

Her fingers curl around his wrist and he sets down the briefcase. Then his arm is slipping around her back, pulling her in close to him and she knows for a fact that this is her David. How did he find her? How did he escape? The entire generation of David-8's has been recalled. There's no way they could've just let him go…

"I will need to stay hidden."

Elizabeth wants to cry. Deep within her chest, she battles. Her hair rubs against the cotton fabric of his shirt and she steps back to look at him again. The black hair, the scar. He looks… completely human.

"There is an island in the gulf," he says.

"We'll go tomorrow."

They stand, facing each other, with his hand still resting on her back. Somehow even here on Earth, David manages to make her feel like it is just them—just them like it was on the ship and she has grown so fond of this feeling she doesn't ever want to let it go again.

"I've missed you," she finally chokes out.

He smoothes back her hair. "As have I."

The feeling is real, she decides, and that's all that really matters.

END


End file.
